Rodgers & Hammerstein classic revived in Essex

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" is at Ivoryton Playhouse through July 26 with David Pittsinger and Adrianne Hick in the starring roles.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" is at Ivoryton Playhouse through July 26 with David Pittsinger and Adrianne Hick in the starring roles.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Photo: Contributed Photo

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" is at Ivoryton Playhouse through July 26 with David Pittsinger and Adrianne Hick in the starring roles.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" is at Ivoryton Playhouse through July 26 with David Pittsinger and Adrianne Hick in the starring roles.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Rodgers & Hammerstein classic revived in Essex

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The themes of racial prejudice and wartime sacrifice have never dated, so “South Pacific” still seems fresh 66 years after its world premiere at the Shubert Theater in New Haven.

The production at the Ivoryton Playhouse has been receiving rave reviews that have noted that while there is none of the spectacle of the most recent Broadway revival, the staging in the intimate venue heightens the dramatic qualities of the World War II-era Rodgers and Hammerstein show.

“It’s a masterpiece, but it’s not indestructible. It has been done badly. I think it must be done as a play (rather than a traditional musical) so that you can get into the meat of the story,” director David Edwards said in a recent interview.

“You need fine actors in the lead roles and they have to have chemistry,” he added, praising his two stars, Adrianne Hick in the role of the naive nurse Nellie Forbush and David Pittsinger as Emile DeBecque, the sophisticated French plantation owner she falls for during her posting to a remote South Pacific island base.

Nellie’s ingrained racism is revealed when she finds it difficult to accept Emile’s bi-racial children from an earlier marriage. Showing such an unsympathetic side of the heroine in a musical was shocking more than a half-century ago and it still surprises audiences who expect a conventional Broadway show.

“I think we are all grateful to Lincoln Center Theater for looking at the show as a play and the director not getting in the way of the writing,” Edwards said of the influential 2008 hit revival staged by Bartlett Sher.

“It’s a show you don’t need to fiddle with. You don’t need to find a new ‘concept,’” the director noted of the lasting power of the book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan (based on “Tales of the South Pacific,” by James A. Michener). The high quality of the script was recognized by the 1949 Pulitzer Prize voters who named “South Pacific” the year’s best drama (a relatively rare occurrence for a musical).

Edwards said that audiences are still surprised by Nellie’s racism, but the fact that she is a less than perfect heroine who tries to change ultimately makes her endearing to theatergoers.

“She holds up a mirror to us,” the director said of the young nurse. “We root for her and want her to overcome her background.”